


Bashed Together on Venus

by Sathroe



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Amnesia, F/F, Vent Kids Slang, no beta we die like angella, warframe au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29581191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sathroe/pseuds/Sathroe
Summary: Catra was having an easy enough time on the job before some foreign Merkmerk came in with guns blazing on her own job and made everything difficult. Now Catra just wants to get back to her pad and plan her next attempt but the woman won't leave her alone. She has no experience with warframes and doesn't know how to get this one to leave her alone, but some small part of her doesn't want to chase the woman off. Something about the warrior feels familiar.But that's not possible...is it?
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Bashed Together on Venus

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this at 3 am, didn't edit, didn't get a beta, i just wanted this done as fast as possible so i can get back to my pile of WIPs. I will go back and edit this at some point, and I have ideas for more story after this but all of that waits for me to get some sleep

Stalking through the twisting vents towards the alcove she calls home the solari can’t seem to move fast enough to lose the annoying follower who’d been causing trouble for her for the last few hours.

“Look, for the last time, glinty, you don’t need to babysit me. You got me out of there, and I’m proper glad for that, but I’m terminal now. ‘Sides, there’s no reason for one of you to have any sort of interest in me, let alone be following me to bed, chekchek?”

Once again the warframe following behind her, a strange Gara with glass that shined more like crystal with a full spectrum constantly shifting over the white and gold body, just sighed at the attitude the vent kid was giving her.

“I am not trying to follow you to bed I’m just worried now that the corpus know who you are. I know you’re going to try for Gannus’ Life again later, and with the debt collectors coming for a full body repo I don’t see how else you’ll get off-planet to get the work needed to pay.”

With that Catra whirls to angrily stalk back towards the ancient warrior pointing a robotic finger at her chest. Which would be more intimidating if it wasn’t at the same level as her own head.

“Checknah, glinty. I survived this long without you offering charity and I’m not leaving the logical I’ve built for myself here just because the corpus have me on cam taxing some stuff and sneakin’ ‘round. With the sum Red Veil’s looking to pay for it I’ll more than cover the added debt of an infraction like that. Scope it clean, they have no evidence I was involved in any assassination attempt other than you dragging me out, long as we part here everything’s dog so there’s no need to be suckin air over this.”

The larger woman comes to a complete halt at that, tilting her head. Catra gets the feeling that if the mercenary could make any sort of facial expression her face would be all screwed up in confusion. Most of these off-worlders stumbled with the slang.

“I think you lost me at the end there.”

She sighs in resignation, but finds herself surprised by the temptation to actually explain despite only knowing this woman for a matter of minutes. Sure she knew She-Ra was on the planet and running around trying to help Vox Solaris for a few weeks now, but she felt she’d known her for far longer than could even be possible. There was something about the way she was able to predict what the warrior was going to do next while they were in the middle of combat or could read her body language more fluently than she could her own family.

She-Ra shakes off her hesitation and continues before Catra can come to some sort of decision. “I know you’re capable and have a syndicate’s backing, but I don’t stay dead when filled with holes, you would. Besides, I’ve handled much harder assassination contracts than this, I fought Alad V! One of Frohd Bek’s facility managers is nothing.”

“You’re wasting time talking about this, if you do the contract alone I don’t get a cut and I’m better off trying to swing it without you since your idea of stealth is as subtle as an Executor.”

That statement leaves both of them stunned, reeling as they absorb what she just said. For Catra the confusion’s simple, she doesn’t remember ever saying that before, it’s not a term she thought she knew, but she does. She even remembers seeing some but that shouldn’t be possible. Sure she wasn’t raised in Fortuna, she was tossed in by some random corpus jackass after being saved from some sort of pod in the middle of some space wreck. She took to the place well and grew tight with the logical family that helped her get over her amnesia, helped her make the custom head that looks like a kavat once she was forced to auction off some of her organs and build herself a custom replacement torso small and slim enough for her frame. But the last executor should have died in the fall, the Great Betrayal...who calls it that? Regardless it should have been over a thousand years ago, there’s no way she could have seen one. Not without being an Orokin herself but it would have been obvious if she was. Wouldn’t it?

The tenno seems to give her a long, hard look, clearly judging something for herself before the front of her warframe glows and a girl Catra’s age literally steps out through the thing as if it was just some sort of hologram. The girl’s almost painful to look at but Catra has no idea why, she has a high ponytail with a little pompadour on the front and eyes that are just barely blue through the grey. She’s a little taller than Catra but looks to be around the same age, somewhere in the mid-teens, body sculpted with muscle under what looks to be some sort of military uniform space suit with the helmet retracted. When she talks her voice is uncertain, but still sounds better than anything Catra remembers hearing before.

“Hi, I’m Adora. This is what I really look like, do you...do you know me?”

Catra’s surprised as her voice comes out defensive and hurt, she could feel the metal ‘ears’ on her headpiece pinned back and the tail she built soon as she understood the cyborg tech lashing behind her but she’d been chalking those up to shock. “Why should I? What makes you think I would?”

“Because your voice reminds me of someone I knew. More than just your voice, I guess. Forget it, It’s ridiculous. She died. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“Wait.”

Both of them are shocked again for a second, but as much as the impossibilities scare her, Catra feels an old itch start up again. Her curiosity, the burn of wonder, about where she came from is flaring up now that there’s a chance, however small, that she has a lead. She takes a moment to really weigh her options, the chances are slim and she doesn’t really trust this girl just because there’s a chance she might know something. But she is drawn to her and trust can be built.

“Come on, the spot I sleep and stash my plank is just a little further. We can talk ‘bout the job there and figure out how to work it together, split the dosh. I don’t trust you, but I’ll give you a chance to start earning it.”

At that the blonde can’t contain the excited and nearly wondrous smile that takes over her face. She nods fervently and Catra turns away and starts walking before the confusing emotions welling up inside of her can get any stronger. She still feels her tail start moving upwards with her own excitement as she can’t keep the tip still.

They get there pretty quickly, a redundant and unused conditioning unit and flow hub that she gutted to give herself a frankly luxurious amount of space. It’s tall enough that even the warframe that’s been walking behind the girl can reach above her head a few inches before touching the ceiling and there’s even enough floor space to fit her storage, camping stove, worktable, and a full sleeping bag all in the same segment and still have some free space.

She finds herself surprisingly shy as she turns to the visitor, worried for the first time about what someone thinks of her stolen schedule boards decorating the walls and cluttered workstation. The three K-drives leaned against the wall, all tuned to perfection for different needs. She’s not used to caring what someone else thinks like this, she’s starting to fear it might be some sort of crush.

“So this is the pad. One of the most primo spots up here, gutted and reworked the segment of venting myself. No loss of flow or heat while freeing up plenty of space, far enough for some privacy but not so far as to require a hike to market. Primo.”

Adora chuckles to herself for half a second before she comments. “It’s impressive, especially since you carved it out yourself. I wonder what you could do if you had access to a larger block of tech and had more than just scraps to work with.”

“Well, that’s almost definitely not gonna happen. I don’t want to leave my logical behind while this place’s still run on debt and this is better than the apartments workers get that’re monitored and cost credits.” She pauses for a moment before killing the topic by moving to the next. “Alright, from what I hear She-Ra’s set up with the Arbiters, so my Red Veil contacts won’t be too happy if they hear I’m planning on working with you and your contacts won’t be happy when they hear you’ve completed this mission. You sure you’re willing to do this?”

The girl raises an eyebrow and smirks in her best attempt at cockiness. It works but she looks like a dork for trying. “Yeah, why? Worried about my reputation?”

“What? No. Just wanna make sure you won’t get cold feet.” The laugh she gets in return is more than worth it, she’s pretty sure it’s laughing with her and not at her. Not something Catra’s used to from people who didn’t grow up in the colony.

“Sure thing, kittycat.”

“Oh, void. You had to go and make it weird, didn’t you?”

But Adora’s expression just turns thoughtful for a moment before she shifts back to the conversation. “So, how close are you to the Red Veil, anyway?”

The solari just laughs and pulls out a small badge from inside the smelter armor she wears. “Esteemed.” Her voice is smug at the shock that sets into the other’s face upon recognizing the viscera sigil on the badge.

“Wha-How-How did? How did you get that high up in the syndicate? You don’t even leave Fortuna?”

At this Catra pulls out all of her confidence and lets herself preen at the reaction. “Now who ever said that?” She cuts Adora off before she could interrupt. “I don’t want to leave my family behind, that doesn’t mean I don’t take business trips up to the relays.”

The blonde just blinks at her for a few seconds. “Is that what logical means? Family?”

Catra’s caught off guard by the question and finds herself answering in a far less mocking tone than she normally would. Actually her tone is almost wonder but she’s not sure how it got there. “Yeah, those raised by their blood relatives have a biological family, we don’t have that, just the knowledge that we have each other’s backs. So it’s wordplay based on how we don’t share the bio but it’s still logical for us to treat each other like family.”

The smile she gets in response is small and cute. “I like that. The tenno have something similar between ourselves, but we don’t really have a word for it.”

_ They were nothing but animals by then. So I hunted. _

Catra loses her balance from the force of the thought, something she hears in her own voice, her real voice, but cannot place. She feels dizzy as she sits down for a moment on her makeshift cot, the movement panicking her companion and causing them to come out of hiding and it’s all she can do to keep them from attacking while trying to settle whatever was affecting her.

* * *

Adora’s been trying her best to keep her hope contained since she met the other girl. The Solari with the copper machinery and tail that she found crawling around a corpus base on the planet as the explosives She-Ra planted were getting close to blowing. The dark crimson armoring on the parts of her that were still organic and the kavat head reminded her a little, bit it was when she was hauling the other girl out of the compound that the voice nearly made Adora drop her as they exfiltrated. It’s the voice that’s echoing around Adora’s head and her heart and making it impossible to just drop whatever this is.

She-Ra had been going loud as she usually does, fighting her way to the location from the second she stepped into the snowy landscape. It wasn’t the first time she came across a local in the middle of their own thing while she was fighting, but it was the first time she was genuinely scared of the possible outcomes. First time in a very long time she was afraid of losing someone.

She was flattered when the vent kid decided to trust her enough to work together. Trying her best to contain the hope and excitement at the familiar joke for fear of if things turned out to all be in her head. She was trying to just be happy to enjoy this new connection for what it is. She wasn’t sure how much she was lying to herself.

When Catra suddenly sat down on the pile of rags and insulation in the corner Adora started to move forward, worried for her safety but froze when she noticed a gun leveled at her face.

The solari’s voice was shaky while she waved this new figure down. “No, no. She’s a friend. Don’t shoot, I invited her here. I just got dizzy for a moment, probably not eating enough. It’s not her fault.”

With that the floating thing lowered its weapon and drifted down to look over the girl and Adora got a look at it. A crimson and black Shade drone that had gotten torn apart at some point and been repaired with moa parts until it barely looked like itself. Clearly it worked fine, though. Maybe some extra personality from the moa’s processors but Adora was never sure just how aware either of those things were. 

Catra almost sounds embarrassed as she makes introductions. “Adora, this is Applesauce. Applesauce, this is Adora. She-Ra? How does that work?”

“She-Ra’s more of a code name. It’s what I take missions under and it was my callsign in the Old War, but it’s not the name my family calls me. I was Adora before I was a soldier, and It’s more important to me.”

Then, as if it was the most normal thing to ask in the world. “What’s her name?” Catra motions at the warframe still standing in the entrance without even looking at it.

The blonde’s jaw drops and it takes her a while to do more than just gape and formulate a response. “What do you mean?” Ok, normal question. If only her tone of voice was anything other than gobsmacked.

“Her name, before she was turned into that. Or at least what you call her now. She’s more active than a normal Gara, has to have most of her mind still intact.”

It takes all of Adora’s willpower to not comment on how rare that knowledge is. It takes all of her self-control to not ask how the girl knows it. It becomes impossible to contain the blossoming hope though and it’s a near thing containing it from spilling into her voice. “Her name’s Mara. It was her name before, she was a volunteer for the program knowing what it would cost her. You know, I knew someone else who named robotic companions after foods.” What she leaves out is that C’yra’s favorite was a Shade Prime named Applesauce that was her most common companion before she met her kavat Melog. Oh, what’ll she tell Melog? Worry about that later.

Catra’s voice is still a little pained and she sounds a touch disoriented though she’s finally starting to sound more like herself. Her posture isn’t as hunched in on herself and the hand cradling her headpiece doesn’t have a deathgrip on it anymore.“Yeah? Figured I was the only one, everyone else here jokes about it all the time. It just felt right. Like naming a pet something stupid on purpose since they’ll smile at it no matter what. May as well name them something that amuses you as well.”

Adora can’t contain all the naked affection in her voice, but she does at least keep it down. She feels bad for hoping that the other girl’s still too disoriented and pained to notice. “Yeah, makes total sense. Anyway, want me to get you something? Food? Water?”

The solari finally lets go of her robotic head and looks up after shaking it once, her voice stable at last as she waves the notion off with the hand that had already been free. “Nah, I’ll fill the nutrient tube after you leave. The rest of this will be quick. Since you and Mara seem good at it you two will hit the base and cause some chaos. Try to sneak to it so that you don’t have the entire colony’s security dropping in on your ass, but with you making noise outside acting like you’re there to hack the system for credits Applesauce and I will have an easy time sneaking in and doing the job.”

She stands and heads over to her workbench beginning to look through it for something. “I’ve got some automated hacking programs that should get you a decent haul of credits lying around though you’ll have to attach them to some pretty important and central systems, but that’s the exact kind of high-visibility job that’s perfect for making them think you don’t have anything else up your sleeve.” She eventually pulls out a small device with a wire to plug into a port on the mainframe, a screen to show how it’s doing, and some sort of maglock on the back to attach it.

Adora takes the device and is a little surprised that something advanced enough to slice into corpus computer systems can fit in her hand.

“Sure, sounds good to me. You want me to use one on the base’s main computer and just keep it going as long as possible or throw several around?”

“Tsk. I’ll try to find you some more for tomorrow, make a couple if I can. Having multiple will let us move where their security has its attention focused to adapt to changing situations or if Gannus moves. Right now I’m starting to think it’s time we stop suckin wind, I’m gonna want to prepare.” Adora almost doesn’t hear the next part, spoken just above a whisper. “And you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Sure, I’ll get out of your hair. So to speak, that is. Um. Sorry. Is that insensitive?”

Catra just laughs at her. “A little but I’ve always found it more funny than insulting so we’re terminal. Now get out of here, glinty. Make sure you get plenty of rest as well, you’ll wanna be in primo form.”

Adora hears the smile in her voice at hearing that laugh again. “I’ll be sure to go to sleep early tonight. Hope you feel better soon, sleep well.”

It’s as she walks through the curtain separating the room from the rest of the vents that she hears the response, spoken with the well-worn reverence of a quote. “Dream of who you want to be, tenno.”

It hits her instantly but she’s able to keep the thought at bay until she’s safely one with Mara again and a bit further away.

_ Dream... not of what you are... but of what you want to be. _

A memory shared between C’yra and herself, their favorite of their almost-mother Margulis from when they were learning to harness transference. One that had a deeper meaning to the two than many of the other tenno who had less experience with the need to have their bodies altered to feel like they fit. One she still meditates on often.

One that she’d managed to avoid thinking about for almost two years.

One that didn’t hurt for the first time since she woke up in a new millennium with no idea if the girl she loves was alright.

Terminal.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for your patience with this, hope you liked it, if not that's ok  
> this one was completely self-indulgent and as much as i love you all i wrote this one for me


End file.
